Women with big butts have low cholesterol, sugar

Singapore: According to the latest research by the University of Oxford, women with larger than average buttocks were increasingly intelligent and more resistant to chronic illness.

The study found that women more well-endowed in the posterior regions tended to have lower levels of cholesterol and were more likely to produce hormones to metabolize sugar. In other words, they were also less likely to have diabetes or heart problems.

Dr Michael Jensen, director, endocrine research, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, US, said that, "If you're going to have fat, you're definitely better off if you've got some fat in the lower body. If you look at people who have primarily the pear shape, they're healthy in all the ways that this fat behaves. It's not just less heart attacks or less diabetes, it's all these ways we think about fat as an important organ for our health."

As having a big butt often requires an excess of omega 3 fats, it may help to push brain development. The authors of the study also found that children born to women with wider hips were sometimes intellectually superior to those with slimmer, smaller hips.

The team analyzed data from over 16,000 women and found that having a big behind also favors leptin levels in the female body, a hormone that's responsible for regulating weight. Findings also suggested that it helped produce dinopectina, a hormone with anti-inflammatory, vascular-protective and anti-diabetic attributes.